posted August 13, 2016 07:07 PM            

Three states – Alaska, Alabama, and Wyoming – are already down to just a single insurance company, as are large parts of several other states, totaling at least 664 counties.

UnitedHealth is pulling out completely, Humana is pulling out of 88 percent of counties it was in, and last weak Aetna strongly suggested it will be exiting, too, unless it gets bribed to stay with a huge, annual infusion of direct corporate bailout payments from taxpayers.

Dealing with the wreckage will be at the top of the agenda for the new president and Congress next year, and their options will be limited – especially if, as appears likely, we will continue to have divided government. Most Democrats would prefer moving toward a totally government-run system while Republicans continue to favor repeal.

The most likely outcome, then, is the muddled middle, keeping gravely ill Obamacare on life support, with the major policy fight being over the extent to which taxpayers should be forced to provide billions in direct corporate bailout cash infusions.

Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini was pretty blatant in a recent interview with Zachary Tracer of Bloomberg.

Here’s the key part:

“Rather than transferring money among insurers, the law should be changed to subsidize insurers with government funds, Bertolini said. ‘It needs to be a non-zero sum pool in order to fix it,’ Bertolini said. Right now, insurers ‘that are less worse off pay for those that are worse off.’”

In other words: everybody is losing money, so taxpayers need to pick up the tab.

The Obama administration is already playing fast and loose with the law to shovel as many bailout bucks to insurers as they can – on top of Obamacare’s huge subsidies to lower income consumers and a penalty tax on people who don’t buy in. They shortchanged taxpayers by $3.5 billion that, contrary to law, they sent to insurance companies instead. And their legal posture in a $5 billion lawsuit to contravene a funding restriction expressly enacted by Congress to prevent a bailout via the so-called risk corridor program amount to a promise that they will somehow get them paid in the future.

Democrats will likely support legalizing these payments and authorizing even larger direct corporate bailouts on an ongoing basis as a way to keep insurance companies in the Obamacare exchanges and avoid admitting failure.

Republicans will likely be attacked as saboteurs for resisting bailout payments, but that misses the point. Direct corporate welfare to bribe companies to participate in a poorly designed program is throwing good money after bad, masking rather than fixing problems while the cost to taxpayers climbs into the stratosphere.

We won’t be able to get to a real solution until we acknowledge that Obamacare is too rigidly structured and regulated to offer products people actually want, and needs to be reformed or replaced with genuine, functioning markets that give us a much wider variety of plans with different benefit packages, provider networks, and payment structures.

posted August 14, 2016 12:00 PM            

I don`t know if it is just MI or all but if you have the "opportunity" to purchase insurance through your employer, you can not use the gov. sites to purchase your insurance. Even tho your employers insurance is much more costly, you can`t use Obamacare to reduce your costs.
We pay about $200 more through the employer than the Mi Health care insurances. After Obamacare was instituted, we have seen our ins. jump $110 a week more.
How does this help middle class America??
This needs changed to reflect the ability to purchase the least expensive insurance.

posted August 15, 2016 07:43 AM            

I realize, by now, it can`t be scrapped but it certainly needs gutted and reworked.

posted August 16, 2016 08:37 AM            

Aetna pulled out of 11 of the state health care exchanges this week because of the high costs/too many ill people climbing aboard. That leaves 3 states with them. What happens if all but one or two pull out?? Exorbant unaffordable health care.
It has spiralled out of control.

posted August 16, 2016 10:02 PM            

Check ICD 9E 978 section of Obamacare. It is the section titled "Legal Execution".
And while at it check HR 6566.

US government ordered 30,000 gillotines.
and 600 million hollow bullets ?? what are hollow bullets ?